Engaging the West African Catholic diaspora on behalf of Cafod

In all the roles she has filled, from the BBC to the UN and as Head of Media at Cafod, Nana Anto-Awuakye says she has seen herself first and foremost as a teller of stories. But as she moves into a new role at Cafod, which she joined in 2005, it is time to tell her story.

In her fifties, Nana has always stood out: “When I joined the BBC in 1989, I was the only black face in the whole department.” And when she worked for the UN peacekeeping mission in Kosovo, she was the first black person many of the young Albanians and Serbs she worked with to produce radio programmes, had ever seen.

She believes her diverse background made her tell stories differently. “I worked hard to bring new voices and their experiences on the airwaves, I remember working on a BBC documentary with a young girl of dual heritage – Jamaican and white British parents – growing up on a Deptford Housing Estate.

“Working in radio, I feel I was a bit braver about authenticity,” she says. “I didn’t edit out pauses or loud breaths. I thought the silences were just as important as the words being spoken”.

As she takes up her new post, engaging the West African Catholic diaspora in England and Wales on behalf of Cafod, Nana, understands the strengths and the challenges of being second generation of Ghanaian parentage. Her father came to the UK on a scholarship to study law and was called to the Bar here. Her mother, who joined him soon afterwards, was a civil servant for 30 years.

During her time with BBC Radio, she covered the stories of traumatised children in Northern Ireland and Sierra Leone and interviewed a psychologist in Mozambique about pupils who insisted on packing their bag and going to school during the civil war, even though there were no teachers.

At Cafod she has seen the impact of humanitarian emergencies on communities, and the frontline role the Catholic Church plays in responding to people’s immediate needs. “I have been really privileged to travel with Cafod to countries such as Pakistan and Haiti,  after the devastating earthquakes, and to Democratic Republic of the Congo, where communities affected by humanitarian emergencies face challenging circumstances. She says. “What put me to shame was the power of people’s faith – I realised mine was not as sturdy as theirs. I learned to be humble, to appreciate what was available to me. When I got home, I would be upset about dripping taps, food uneaten in the fridge, lights left on.”

In her work Nana saw what Cafod’s local Church partners could achieve.  In Northern Kenya in 2018, she met Father Stephen Murage, who told her, “We never give up. Whether the fourth, fifth, sixth drought, we never give up. We can’t stand by and let people suffer. We must respond. Responding creates hope in people’s hearts. When people see Caritas, they find the strength to carry on, to survive.” Today his words hold true, as the Church responds to the latest devastating drought and hunger crisis, after of fourth season of no rain.

The strength of community in such places affected her deeply: “I come as a stranger, and I am embraced.” Her voice breaks as she remembers a woman in northern Ethiopia, today, dealing with conflict, hunger and Covid, who unwrapped a small piece of bread and insisted that she take half. “I tried to refuse, but I realised it was the fellowship, the need to share with a visitor.”

After the earthquake which devastated Haiti in 2010, she remembers seeing people emerge from tents among the ruins of Port-au-Prince's  Catholic Cathedral, dressed in their Sunday best for  the open air Mass amongst the rubble.

Born in South East London, Nana, the eldest of four, was brought up to believe that with faith in God, hard work and the power of education, there were no limits to what the children could achieve. “Growing up, we never appreciated how much racism our parents faced,” she says. “They shielded us from it.”

When the family moved to the area of south-east London where they still live, Nana recalls that the majority of the congregation in the local Catholic church was white Irish. “We were among four black families who sat at the back of the church and felt they couldn’t get involved in parish life.” How that has changed over the years: “Now the faces in the pews are mainly West African, with some from southern Africa and south-east Asia, and we are very much involved.”

Nana’s first task in her new role, is to meet, listen to, and connect with West Africa Diaspora Catholics across England and Wales. There is the easy assumption that she should only focus on London and the south-east, but she has already been told about communities in Middlesbrough, Swansea and Oldham, albeit smaller in numbers. “It’s important to avoid the ‘group think’ bias’, she says. “My role will be to support Cafod to understand how these communities engage with the international development agenda, parish life, and what they think about Cafod. It’s about me going out and enriching Cafod in many different ways.

“I guess that for me, my love of storytelling will be at the heart of this role. If Cafod wants to understand this specific community, it has to understand its stories and lived experiences. And once Cafod has an understanding of those stories that come from this community, perhaps it can start thinking about the next step, engagement.

“But it can’t be one-way; it has to be that this community enriches Cafod. It has to be what Pope Francis calls a culture of encounter.”

Nana Anto-Awuakye is Cafod’s West Africa Diaspora ( England and Wales) Engagement Coordinator. She was interviewed by Raymond Whitaker.